by Karen Ranney
He hadn’t respected the man in India, a feeling that had led to loathing soon enough. His memory summoned up images of the duke ordering the rebels to be blown from cannons, reason enough to despise the man. The more journals he read, the more his opinion was reinforced. The Duke of Marsley was morally bankrupt and ethically challenged.
“The darling died in the accident, of course,” Olivia said. “Drowned, poor mite. I can still hear the duchess’s scream when she was told.”
She shook her head, her attention on the tabletop, but Adam could see that she was reliving that moment.
“Why does no one ever mention his name? Or say anything about him?”
Mrs. Thigpen glanced at him. “It wasn’t for lack of love for Georgie. We all loved him as well. But it was out of respect for the duchess. Poor thing, to lose her husband and her son in the same accident. We all decided—the previous majordomo, the stable master, the land steward, and me—not to mention the child. And we gave the order that the staff was not to speak of either of them, for her sake.”
He only nodded in response. He didn’t have a thing to say.
As the days passed he started to look for her. She hadn’t come to any of the public rooms. He’d even unbent enough to ask Ella where the duchess was.
“Why would you want to know?” she asked, giving him a narrow-eyed look.
“I need to speak with her about a matter.”
“I’ll tell her you need to see her,” she said, but he didn’t believe her.
If it suited her purposes, Ella would say something. If not, she’d remain silent. It wasn’t loyalty to the duchess as much as it was power. People like Ella hoarded information because it might prove valuable to them in the future.
Nor was the Silent Service forthcoming with information. He was never told more than he absolutely needed to know. The temptation was to do the same in return, to keep back a few details to protect oneself. He’d run into those kinds of people, too.
“Where is she?” he asked, a mistake the minute the words came out of his mouth.
“Is that any of your concern?”
The tone of Ella’s voice was one of disdain, as icy as the duchess.
Except that the duchess hadn’t seemed cold a week ago.
He watched as the maid sauntered off without another word. Too bad he didn’t have the power to dismiss Ella.
Over the past two months he’d established a pattern of behavior for himself as majordomo. The week was filled with approving expenditures or meeting with the upper staff or interviewing the maids and footmen. He believed in information filtering up the chain of command. He was also able to head off any misunderstandings about new rules and regulations that he’d initiated.
Every morning he inspected the staff along with Mrs. Thigpen. That was another change—he wanted to ensure that the staff knew that the housekeeper was well respected and someone they could go to if they had a problem.
Unless there was a visitor expected—which rarely happened at Marsley House—he did not man the door. Instead, a senior footman was assigned that position along with a junior footman in training. Adam was a stickler for training, and no doubt it was because of his time in the army. He never wanted to be surprised. Instead, he believed in preparing for every contingency.
He’d been woefully unprepared for the duchess. Nor had he counted on her father.
Chapter Twelve
“What do you mean she doesn’t want to see me?”
The man’s voice carried to the third floor of the library, where Adam was starting to read the duke’s confessions about his forties. He’d had to wait until late afternoon, when the three maids assigned to the room had finished dusting it. At the slow pace he was going, a few more midnight visits were in order. Few people bothered him in the middle of the night.
He bit back an oath, stood, and straightened his jacket before descending the staircase and heading toward the front door.
The junior footman in training looked terrified, a strange sight since he towered over the man being refused admittance. The senior footman, on the other hand, was trying to appear conciliatory. Adam counted three bows from Thomas by the time he made it to the front door.
“What’s going on, Thomas?” Adam asked.
“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” the visitor said. “This damn fool is keeping me from my daughter.”
Evidently, the short man with the voice of a giant was Edward Hackney. Adam had heard of the man in India. Hackney had been one of the directors of the British East India Company, making a fortune over the years.
He wondered if it was just a coincidence that both the late duke and Hackney had deep ties to India. So did he, since he’d been in the country at the same time.
Hackney’s head seemed oddly out of proportion to the rest of his body, as if God had created a man of small stature and then had only large heads left over. Nothing matched. His nose was long, his mouth almost too broad for his face. His neck was a little squat, giving the impression that his shoulders were too close to his ears.
What he lacked in physical presence, however, Hackney made up for in sheer determination.
“You will take me to my daughter this instant.”
Adam glanced at Thomas. “Have you let the duchess know that she has a visitor?”
“Not just a visitor, damn it,” Hackney said. “I’m her father.”
“Her Grace is not receiving, sir,” Thomas said, his expression deadpan while Daniel still looked terrified. It couldn’t have been easy to refuse Hackney.
At Thomas’s words, Hackney grew even more belligerent.
“Like hell. Where is she?”
Daniel looked at Adam. “She’s in the conservatory, sir.”
When Hackney would have pushed past both the footmen and strode into the house, Adam held up his hand.
“If you’ll wait a moment, sir, I will inquire of Her Grace if she wishes to see you.”
He’d been in command of hundreds of men. He knew just what kind of tone to employ to a recalcitrant soldier or an idiot general. In this case he chose something halfway between either extreme, but that left Hackney no doubt that he wasn’t going to enter Marsley House.
“Who the hell do you think you are?”
“A member of your daughter’s staff, sir,” he said. “I will ask the duchess what she wishes to do.”
As he turned and left, Adam thought the older man might be on the verge of apoplexy.
At least the duchess had come out of her room.
According to Mrs. Thigpen, the conservatory was one of the duchess’s favorite rooms, and he could well imagine why. It was one of the brightest rooms at Marsley House in a building that had hundreds of windows to let in the light. Here the windows jutted out and met at the ceiling to form a roof of sorts. He’d been in this room during a storm once. Nature had surrounded him, the sound of the rain against the windows like a giant drum.
He stood in the doorway, admiring the various kinds of plants for a few seconds. He knew nothing about growing things. In Glasgow, they’d never been close to a garden. In India, he had been too busy to learn about the native flora and fauna.
There was a small enclosed area to the left with a table and two chairs against the window. The Duchess of Marsley was seated there, her hands clasped together on the tabletop, her face turned not toward the conservatory, but toward the back of the house and the kitchen garden.
At his appearance, she turned her head and regarded him with a steady look. He fingered her brooch in his pocket and thought about returning it now.
Instead he said, “Your father is here to see you.”
“I know.” Her voice was calm, almost too calm. “I can hear him.”
He took a few steps toward her. “He seems intent upon seeing you, Your Grace.”
“Does he?”
She didn’t say anything else. Nor did she look away. She blinked slowly, as if she were half-awake.
“Some people always get what
they want. Have you ever noticed that, Drummond?”
“I have,” he said, wondering if he should summon some tea for her. Something strong to wake her. Or had she been drinking?
“My father always gets his way. He demands it.”
“He doesn’t have to in this case, Your Grace.”
“Oh, Drummond, you must take my word for it. He will never accept no. Not from me. Not from anyone. He can be quite ferocious.”
She smiled lightly, but it wasn’t an expression of amusement.
“Would you like me to send him away, Your Grace?”
“I should like that very much, Drummond, but I’m afraid it will not work.”
She looked almost fragile sitting there in the sunlight in her black dress. Her blue-gray eyes seemed to see down into his soul. No doubt it was only his guilty conscience that made him think that. Why the hell should he be feeling guilty? It was her husband who was the traitor.
“What did you say to me?”
He frowned, not understanding.
“The other night, on the roof. And then in my bedroom. You said something to me. In Gaelic, I think. What was it?”
He toyed with the idea of lying to her. It hadn’t been the most polite of expressions.
“What the hell are you doing hiding out in this place, Suzanne? You’re the Duchess of Marsley. Act like it. You don’t need to go to ground like a damn fox.”
They both turned to see Hackney pushing his way into the conservatory, the two footmen following. Short of physically accosting the man, there was nothing they could have done. A determined bully could outmaneuver a servant trained in tact and politeness any day.
Adam was slightly different.
He caught the duchess’s flinch and saw her face pale slightly.
Turning, he stood between her and Hackney. He braced himself with his feet apart, his arms crossed in front of him.
“The duchess is not at home,” he said, parroting an expression he’d been taught. The art of lying was specific among the upper class. You didn’t actually come out and say that you didn’t want to see someone. Instead, you implied that you weren’t there, even though everyone knew you were.
“Get out of my way, you damn fool,” Hackney said.
He outweighed the man by at least fifty pounds and a good six inches. Plus, he wasn’t a normal majordomo. He’d been a soldier in Her Majesty’s army, with experience in the Sepoy Rebellion, and countless skirmishes before and after. He’d been wounded twice and promoted for his stubbornness.
He didn’t back down easily.
“The duchess is not at home,” he repeated, more than willing to act as a human bulwark against Hackney and his daughter.
He felt her hand on his shoulder and smelled her perfume as she came to stand beside him. The scent was different from what she’d worn that night on the roof. Light yet lingering and suiting her better.
She trailed her hand over his sleeve to rest at his elbow.
“That’s all right, Drummond,” she said. Her voice was calm, as if he were a wild animal and she his trainer. “I’ll see my father.”
Without a word she left them, leading the way, evidently, because Hackney followed her. Adam wanted to as well, but remained in the conservatory with the two footmen.
“She could have made our job a damn sight easier, sir, if she’d agreed to see the man in the first place.”
Adam looked at Daniel. “That is the last time I’ll hear criticism of the duchess, do you understand? If you value your place here.”
To his credit, Daniel looked a little abashed. He nodded. “I understand, sir. It won’t happen again.”
Adam dismissed them and as they went back to their post, he turned and looked at the view the duchess had found so interesting.
What was wrong with her? And why did he care?
Chapter Thirteen
“You look worse than you did the other night,” her father said. “You’re not going to be of any use to me, Suzanne, if you don’t at least look the part. People are impressed to meet a duchess, but not if she looks like a chambermaid.”
She had heard it all before. Countless times, as a matter of fact. On so many occasions that whenever her father started on this tirade, she stopped listening.
Instead, she chose to think about Drummond. Drummond had protected her. He’d stood there, defying her father in a way no one else ever had. How odd that she could see him in a kilt, perhaps with a broadsword strapped across his chest.
She led her father into one of his favorite rooms, the Green Parlor, so called because of the predominant color. A mural of a forest had been painted on three walls, with the fourth wall being given over to three ceiling-to-floor windows. Despite the sensation of openness, she always felt closed in when she came here.
He hadn’t come to Marsley House to comment upon her appearance. Nor to criticize her in other ways, although that would surely come. No, her father wanted something.
Planning was what separated the successful man from the failure. Her father had imparted that bit of wisdom to her when she was a child. After she’d married, he’d used that axiom with George on numerous occasions. Although he hadn’t considered George a planner. More a quintessential example of failure, which of course he was.
George hadn’t added to the family coffers. Every attempt at investing had ended in ruin. Even his military career was speckled with rumors. Other men had been singled out for their courage or their brilliant tactical minds. Sometimes, George had been invited to those functions, only to return and pepper the air with oaths and questions she couldn’t possibly answer.
Didn’t the fools know what I did in India? I defeated the damn rebels, didn’t I? Did I ever get any credit for it?
Occasionally, they would get visitors, men who’d once reported to George. He would be in his element, the magnanimous duke in command of the troops. For days a glow would seem to surround him.
Her father sometimes had that same effect on George, his flattery not the least bit subtle. Yet George had been an easy pawn to manipulate, someone who could be called upon to attend any dinner or ball, thereby granting to her wealthy father the social standing he craved.
Since George’s death and after a suitable period of mourning—according to her father’s decree more than society’s—she’d been expected to attend all of her father’s gatherings as a hostess of sorts. In actuality, she was not permitted to do more than smile and make a few inane comments. She wandered from room to room in the palatial home her father had built, ensuring that people saw her and knew that she was the Duchess of Marsley. In other words, she was her father’s placard, an advertisement as glaring as those men who marched up and down the street selling something.
“Are you ailing?” her father asked now. “If so, I have an excellent physician you should see.”
“I’m fine, Father. Truly.”
He didn’t say anything out of any concern for her, not really. She’d always realized what kind of man he was. He wasn’t cruel as much as unaware. He was so driven that he didn’t understand that other people might not possess the same ambition or need.
She’d never liked riding, but as a child she’d been forced to learn because her father believed all proper gentlewomen were also good with horses. Once her mount had gotten spooked and raced down the lane at a terrifying speed. Everything was a blur until the mare finally stopped. Suzanne imagined that’s how her father went through life, at such a fast pace that he saw other people only as indistinguishable patterns.
She didn’t know anything about his past. He’d never discussed his childhood and refused to answer questions. She always thought it was because his upbringing embarrassed him, but that wasn’t a comment she’d ever make. If her father had his way, everyone would believe that he’d just appeared on the earth one day, fully formed and grown.
To the best of her knowledge she didn’t have any paternal grandparents. She didn’t know if he had any other relatives. Whenever she asked, wh
ich hadn’t been for years, he changed the subject. For that reason, she’d always suspected that he came from poor, if not desperate, conditions. He’d made himself wealthy, a fact that should have been an object of pride instead of shame.
After selling his shares of the East India Company, yet another topic she wasn’t supposed to discuss, he’d delved into politics, of all things. Her father had no political ambition for himself. In this he wasn’t lacking in self-knowledge. She’d once overheard him discussing the matter with one of his secretaries and his frankness had so surprised her that she hadn’t been able to forget his words.
“I’m too blunt,” he’d said. “I have a way of speaking that puts people off. And I don’t look the part. I’m too short and I’m not a pretty boy. It’s best if I become the power behind a candidate instead of being the candidate. That way we can win.”
Her father’s motives had always been shrouded in mystery, but she couldn’t help but wonder, after hearing his words, if the reason he was doing this—and had become so wealthy—was to prove to the world that he was just as good as anyone else.
That was another subject she could never discuss with him. He didn’t require her understanding, only her presence at the gatherings he arranged. Each one was designed to introduce one of his protégés, men he was sponsoring for public office.
He liked taking an ambitious young man, grooming him, ensuring that he became known, and doing everything within his power to help that individual win his first election.
So far he’d done that three times and, as his successes mounted, so did his resolve. Now he was concentrating his efforts on potential members of Parliament.
His power base might be growing, but Suzanne wished he would keep out of her life.
“I’m having a luncheon,” he said now. “Several highly placed personages will be there.”
She only nodded. He didn’t ask if she would attend. He merely informed her what time and what event and she was expected to dress accordingly and be there.
